


Sun Worshippers

by likeadeuce



Category: Angel: the Series
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-12-17
Updated: 2009-12-17
Packaged: 2017-10-04 12:04:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,035
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29820
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/likeadeuce/pseuds/likeadeuce
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sitting by the pool, thinking about the future.  Wes & Cordy friendship; Wes/Fred URST.  Set at a probably-technically-impossible point early in season 3</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sun Worshippers

Fred pushed the long hair back over one shoulder and set down her bag. (Turquoise macramé with a a smiling starfish patched to the side. Cordelia wondered how someone let her leave the hotel with that; she really needed to talk to the guys about fashion screening). "It's so great to be out here with all of y'all." Fred smiled, and she almost managed not to be looking at the cement the whole time she said it. "It's just a shame Angel can't come."

"Well. . ." Cordelia placed her own carry-all (Fendi – OK, a knockoff but you would need an expert eye to tell, and that was one thing the rest of this crew seriously lacked) down on the plastic-strip _chaise longue_. "Considering that the whole point of this exercise was to get you to leave the hotel during daylight hours. . ."

"Cordelia!" Wesley exclaimed, at the same time Gunn said, "Hey!"

"Oh," Fred laughed shyly and, when she finaly, looked up her eyes shone with undisguised pleasure. "You guys are so sweet. I just wish there was a way for Angel to. . ."

"Sunbathe?" Cordelia whipped the shirt over her head, showing a black and white polka dot bikini top (Asha Couture; not a knockoff; payment in kind from a client who owned a Rodeo Drive swimwear boutique). "I doubt he'd come if he could. Too much like fun. Meanwhile, us sun-worshippers. . ." She looked from Fred to Wesley to Gunn, but none of them made a move to disrobe. "Oh, you've got to be kidding." She glared at Gunn first, since she figured he had the best chance of actually knowing how to behave in a social situation.

"Uh-uh." Gunn touched his dark red Adidas T-shirt. "You ever seen a black man with a sunburn? Just 'cause it don't show don't mean it don't hurt."

"Fine." Cordelia rolled her eyes and turned to Fred. She had on a pink swimsuit bottoms, the kind that looked like tiny running shorts and, over the tank-style top (which wouldn't have shown anything anyway) she wore a T-shirt that said "Frosted Lucky Charms." Looking at the ground again, Fred mumbled, "I don't really like to. . ."

"Yeah," Cordelia interrupted, with a pointed look at Fred's undeveloped chest. "I see your point." Wesley glared and started to tread on Cordelia's foot, but she slid her toes out of range and poked his shoulder. "Now you. . .this is your building, your pool. You said you come here every day."

"Sure. Southern California, heated water. Fifty laps every morning, three hundred sixty-five days a year." With a pointed look at Cordelia he said, "Physical therapy."

Cordelia knew exactly what he was hinting at, and chose to ignore it. If he really wanted to sleep with Fred – which, for some reason, he seemed to -- any shyness about his body was a thing he'd have to get over, and sooner was better than later. "You swim laps in your shirt?" she demanded.

Wes rolled his eyes and pulled off the lime-green crewneck, leaving only his swimming trunks (blue and green checks; was it possible that he was actually colorblind? She made a note to start hiding the J.Crew catalogs that came to the office.) Wesley's chest and stomach were pale as hell, especially against the dark hair, but the look more or less suited him. He was a little skinny for Cordy's tastes, but it wasn't a bad view. She could see that Fred was looking, too, and that it took a moment for the other girl's eyes to stop on the small bare triangle right above the waist of his shorts.

Cordelia herself had guided Fred through 'A Brief History of Angel Investigations,' so she knew that Fred had heard about Wesley's bullet wound. Still, seeing it must have given the old stories new reality, and Cordelia admired the lightness with which Wesley said, "Battle scar." And then, with forced irony, "It just adds to the rugged macho image I've got going."

Gunn snorted, and Wes gave him a look. "Yes, it was painful, but I suppose I can breathe a sigh of relief that I didn't get _sunburned_."

"No, you didn't." Fred agreed, missing his sarcasm. She leaned toward Wesley to take a closer look at his chest. "Somehow, Angel actually has more of a tan than you do. Is that because you're English?"

Wes looked like he was trying to form an answer, but couldn't get past the clear evidence of Fred scrutinizing his body.

Gunn ended the moment when he slapped Fred and Wes in turn on the shoulder. "Last one in's a rotten egg." He dashed off toward the pool, and launched from the side, grabbing his legs under him in a cannonball splash.

"Rotten egg?" Wes echoed and, as the few other patrons shot annoyed looks his way, covered his face. "Oh, God, I'm going to be evicted."

Fred looked after him, and shrugged an apology at Wes. "It looks fun."

"Well, of course. If I – we -- if you want – "

By the time he got the half-sentence out, Fred had already dashed to the side of the pool and was calling to Charles. "Look out I'm coming in!"

She splashed, and Wes looked uncertainly after her, but Cordelia put a hand on his shoulder. "Sit here for a second, will ya? Help me rub oil all over my body."

Wesley's head snapped back toward Cordelia. "Okay," he said obediently and, when she had stretched out on her stomach so he couldn't see her face, she allowed herself a smirk. It may have been Fred that he was into at the moment. But Wesley was still a man and, as far as men were concerned, Cordelia knew a few phrases that were guaranteed to win at least a moment of undivided attention.

The bottle sputtered as Wesley squeezed tanning oil onto his hands. He found the top of her shoulders, and his touch glided over her skin in firm, circular strokes. Over the years of their friendship, Cordelia had conned enough vision-headache-related backrubs out of Wesley to know that he really did have amazing hands. His long fingers knew, as if by instinct, the precise combination of force and gentleness, the kind of thing that occasionally drove her to wonder what he would be like in bed. Of course, she knew that could never actually happen; he had a million little habits would drive her crazy, and it was a more or less documented fact that he couldn't kiss at all. Besides –- lovers might come and go, but there weren't many who could beat a good friend with backrub benefits.

With this reflection, Cordelia let out a sigh of mixed contentment and regret. Wesley's hand stopped. "You really didn't need me to do this, did you?"

She twisted her neck back to grin at him. "I just figured you'd want your neighbors to think you're the luckiest man on the block." Wesley laughed, but then something splashed in the pool, and his eyes jumped toward the water. She followed his gaze -- Fred laughing, chasing Gunn across the pool. "Well," Cordelia muttered, "Second luckiest."

Wesley resumed rubbing but, in a voice of forced calm, he said, "Fred's not with Charles. Not unless – Do you know something? I mean, if they wanted to, I would – but, she's not. Right?"

"No," Cordelia sighed, and rolled over to look up at him. "Just like I'm not with you. I only meant that it might look like they are. And to you, the luckiest man is always going to be the one who's with. . ."

But she had already lost his attention, because Fred had climbed out of the pool, and made a shallow dive back in again. "God, she is graceful, isn't she?"

"Wes . . ." There was infatuation and then there was insanity. "She's wearing a cereal ad on a T-short, over a pink tankini with _shorts_. She might be a lot of things, but graceful?"

Wes flicked her lightly on the back of the neck, but when he spoke, he didn't sound like he was joking. "Why can't you be nice to her?"

"I – that's – I _am_ \--" To be honest, Wes had asked a good question. "Fred's fine. She's sweet and she's. . .um, did I mention sweet?" Which was perfectly true, and it shouldn't have been hard to be nice back. But somehow the girl managed to ping the 'Queen C High School Bitch' instincts that had been more or less dormant since Sunnydale. Maybe Fred's aww-shucksy geek-girl thing reminded her a little too much of Willow Rosenberg -- the type you underestimated until she ended up making out with your boyfriend.

Though _that_ was stupid. It wasn't as though Cordelia wanted of the men of Angel Investigations for herself. _So maybe you don't think she's good enough for your boys. Or, just maybe, it bugs you not to be the center of their attention._ Out loud, she sniffed, "All I'm saying is, the girl's been in a non-cow dimension for months now. It's about time she remembered how to wax."

Wesley's head whirled back to Cordelia. "Wax where?" He sounded like he was about to choke on his tongue and, Cordy imagined, his brain had gone to very dirty place.

"Wes, can I ask you a personal question?" She didn't bother to wait for an answer. "How long is it since you had sex?"

He sputtered for a moment before managing to say, "No! You certainly may not!"

"Well, I figured. That's why I didn't give you time to say no."

"That's just -- well. . .it's personal, it's. . ." He narrowed his eyes at her. "How long is it since _you_ had sex?"

"None of your damn business," she shot back.

"Oh." Wesley scowled. "I guess I should have thought of that." Wes slapped her gently between the shoulder blades. "There you go. All greased up so you can fry the youth out of your skin."

"Thanks." She watched his eyes move back to Fred. "I'm gonna be honest here. If you don't ask that girl out soon, I just might have to do it myself."

"You?" he blinked. "You would. . .Fred? I didn't think that you. . ."

"I might have to ask her _for you_, dingbat. As in, 'Fred, I thought you should know that Wesley would like to ask you to dinner. He would like to take you to a very nice restaurant and/or sketchy taqueria. Then he would like you to go with him to. . . some boring kind of museum thing?" She looked at him for help.

"Dinner and dancing." Wesley played along, hiding a laugh in the back of his throat.

"Dancing. A dinner cruise out to Catalina. Flowers and champagne, moonlight, the whole shebang. Sound good? Great. And then he'd like to go back to . . . your place. . .no, that would be your semi-creepy hotel room. Back to his place. At which point, if all goes well, both of you will. . .take off your clothes and have lots of sex."

"Cordelia!"

"Well, it's honest! And I've been asked out in worse ways. And. . ." She leaned in toward him. "It's got a lot better chance of working than 'you're over here, she's over there.' "

"You," he protested, "are the one who detained me with. . ." He looked down at the bottle of oil and read, "Mineral oil, musa sapientum fruit extract, and tocopherol acetate? You actually want this touching your skin?"

"Those are vitamins, dumbass. And quit changing the subject. Go forth and conquer." Raising sunglasses to her forehead, she looked around, "Where's my _Vogue_?"

He reached into her bag, pulled out the thick glossy magazine, and held it toward her. Just as she reached out her hand, though, he pulled it back. "It's just that I'm not sure I'm comfortable approaching her." He sat on the ground beside her chair and leaned his head back. "Considering the situation. At work."

"What?" Cordelia grabbed for the magazine. Three subscription cards and a perfume sample fell out as she slapped it down. "It's different from when she had a crush on Angel. It's not like you're her boss."

Wesley's jaw dropped open and he seemed to choke on his breath for a moment before saying, "Yes, I am."

"Oh." Cordelia considered Wesley's titular position as head of Angel Investigations.. "I mean, sure. Technically."

"Technically?" he repeated. "Have you not noticed me _technically_ signing your paychecks?"

She lowered her sunglasses and stared at him over the rims. "Is that supposed to be some kind of threat? You're gonna get a new vision girl? Hey. . ." She snapped her fingers. "That's an idea. Maybe Fred would like to volunteer for the horrific mental images and mind-numbing pain?"

"Of course not!" Then a smile crept over his face. "Though if you're volunteering to kiss her, and see if it takes. . ."

"Oh, you'd like that, wouldn't you?"

He cocked an eyebrow, jaunty and playful. "What do you think?"

"Uh huh," she nodded, then sat up straight, and called across the pool. "Fred!"

Wes ducked his head and shaded his eyes. "Cordelia!"

"Yeah?" Fred called.

"Come over here." Cordy gestured.

"Don't you dare." He grabbed her arm. "I'm gonna kill you if. . ."

"What is it?" Fred stood in front of them now, dripping, a smile flickering uncertainly, on and off her face, like a television with a bad picture tube.

"Wesley just wanted to tell you. . ." He clapped his hand over Cordelia's mouth, so that she had to mumble _he thinks you and me should kiss_ around the sides of his fingers, which tasted like coconut oil, which, for some reason this made Cordelia laugh, and she fell back against him, laughing, and he was laughing too.

And then they both looked up at once, and saw Fred staring at the ground again. "Oh. It's a joke? I just thought --" Something in her expression made Cordelia think, _Uh oh_. Wesley must have sensed it to, because he stopped laughing at the same moment, as Fred stammered. "It's okay. The two of you – I know you've known each other, like, forever. It doesn't bother me if you have jokes that are just the two of you. I'll just --" She nodded back at the pool.

Cordelia shot a guilty look at Wesley, who looked stricken in return. She suddenly realized that, far from suspecting Wesley's crush, Fred must have thought they were over here whispering and joking about her. "It's nothing like that, Fred," Cordelia blurted. "It's just that Wesley had something he wanted to tell you and. . ." She looked at his baffled, half-terrified face, "I'll let him tell you himself."

"Yes. Of course. I – wanted to tell you. Then I thought it was silly. I mean – I thought you might find it silly. So Cordy was teasing me to tell you and, well -" He swallowed as Fred gave a puzzled but encouraging nod. "Do you remember our discussion the other day, about how permutations of interdimensional supersymmetry might be observable through. . .what was it?"

"Comparative analysis of naturally occurring mathematical patterns," Fred said, smiling as though this actually made sense to her.

"Well, just this morning, I was looking at some vines in the courtyard over there. . ." He pointed. "And they reminded me of some samples I took in Pylea. Except that those leaves tended to grown in clusters of seven, while these grow in clusters of five. . ."

"Of course!" Fred squealed. "Prime numbers!"

"Naturally," Cordelia said, proud of keeping a straight face.

Fred bounced up on her toes and grabbed Wesley's bare arm. "Will you show me?" Before he could nod, she dashed to the edge of the pool, yelling, "Charles, Wes is gonna show me something, OK? We'll be right back."

"Wow," Cordelia whispered, "Math _and_ plants. You might be the only man alive who could come up with something that insanely boring on the spur of the moment."

"Yes," he said, "And notice how she doesn't even think it's boring?"

"That's true. You really oughta snatch her up while you have the chance." He made a face, and she said, "No seriously, Wes. Date her, sleep with her, marry her. Have lots of babies with scary oversize brains. Only promise me, you'll send them over to Aunt Cordelia's, every once in a while, so they can actually talk about something cool."

"Plants," said Wesley. "We're just looking at plants." Then, before walking away, he squeezed her shoulder. "Thanks."

He walked over to Fred and, put his hand to the back of his neck and leaned close to her. Cordelia, as a three-plus-year student of Wesley's body language, could tell he was repeating a bad joke that he knew was a bad joke. Then Fred laughed, and, as she reached her hand toward his stomach, her words carried, "Does it hurt?"

"No, no, I can hardly feel anything. . .Yes, you can. . ." And she touched his skin, and he looked down at her hand.

_Sure,_ Cordelia thought, _this could lead to love and marriage and fat grandchildren. Why not?_ And a voice came back, _Because, it's a lot more likely to lead to a few minutes of awkward conversation about bougainvillea and calculus. And Fred will have no idea that they're talking about anything but plants and math and war wounds. While Wesley will go home and play the scene over and over in his head, obsessively searching for hopeful signs. And the hoping will keep him going for a month before he has the nerve to make his next move. Only in the meanwhile, Fred will fall for some guy who can't count without his fingers, because he has a sexy laugh or can play guitar or has a cool tattoo, or any of the million and one dumb reasons that human beings randomly decide that one person is better than any other._

And that, it turned out, was the worst part about having friends. You couldn't live their lives for them. You had to sit back and watch, while they made their own mistakes. _Or maybe, for once,_ she thought, _I'm wrong._ And, because she couldn't sit and watch any more, Cordelia closed her eyes and lay back on the chaise, indulging in a last hour's worship of the fading sunlight.


End file.
